Sixth Grade Beginnings

Chapter 41

"WHY on EARTH did I let you talk me into this?!"

Phoebe shuttered the moment her blonde friend yelled, feeling as if the whole neighborhood could hear her. She had been ranting and raving loudly, arms flailing as she walked around in a circle, letting off steam. Fully understanding why Helga was so flustered, the Asian girl did her best to focus on keeping her repose, while showing her undivided attention to the one who needed it the most. "I merely suggested the idea, Helga." She clarified with a soft sigh. "You're the one who decided to take the challenge head on without considering the party in question..."

For the last 4 days, Phoebe watched as Helga's fuse began to shrink shorter and shorter; her morale, patience, and energy wearing thin. By the end of each one of those days, Phoebe had continued to show her support, encouraging her friend that she was doing an excellent job and to try to not focus on the negative, despite knowing the ticking time bomb would inevitably explode.

"How was I supposed to know these were the things I'd be doing?!" Helga asked, kicking the dumpster in front of her repeatedly where someone had drawn a crude image of a woman, until the dent was so large, the image was hardly visible.

"Although, I admit that things didn't go quite as expected..." Phoebe replied, her voice squeaking with uneasy, "You can't deny the fact that you've made a positive impression." She watched as Helga stopped and shot a glare straight at her; her face mirroring that of a bull who had just watched an object being waved in its face. "A-and that was the initial intention."

"That's easy for you to say!" Helga hollered, causing a flock of birds to fly off of the nearest rooftop. "You're not the one who had to give a pig a bath, after being sprayed by a skunk!"

Phoebe adjusted her glasses, as Helga chucked a large rock at the rusted green dumpster, causing a large dent upon impact. "No... I'm not." She agreed, feeling sympathetic towards her friend's plight, as well as the object of her abuse. "It's obvious that your hard work is paying off, though. I can't imagine they would have assigned you some of those tasks, without a favorable amount of trust."

"Trust?" Helga asked in a mocking tone before snatching up a small stone. She threw it up in the air and caught it, all while still keeping her eye on her target. "Cleaning out storages that probably haven't been touched in years, dusting off old bookshelves, fishing out a drain clog, organizing and then rewriting a bunch of stained, torn and falling apart recipe cards... is not what I call trust!" The small stone flew up once more, before being snatched out of the air, and sent hurling towards the large metal target, sending a shockwave to ripple through the dumpster and into the ground beneath them. "It's called taking advantage of the young and dumb!" Helga spat in disgust, before turning around to face her patient counterpart. "It's no different than some of the stupid crap Bob used to make me do, because Miriam was too hung over to be useful, or he was too fat and lazy to do it himself!" She grit her teeth at some intruding memories, then grabbed her backpack off the ground and stomped out of the alleyway.

Quickly, Phoebe gathered her things and chased after her. "The situations aren't the same at all, Helga!" She hurried to explain as she caught up. "You're not doing these arbitrary tasks in vain, just because adults are expecting you to. You're doing them out of your own free will, to show how advantageous and dependable you can be!" They rounded the next corner, dodging a few oncoming pedestrians and a mailbox. "It's about showing respect to your elders, and proving that you'll be a capable partner and provider..."

"This just in, Phoebe! I'm only twelve!" Helga irritably cut her off. "And cleaning out gutters hardly proves that I'm capable of providing for anything, other than cheap labor costs!"